The Pantheon is a two-dimensional graphic display of
the performing artists of rock and soul music most indispensable
(necessary or essential) to Gator. The concept derives from the
ancient Roman temple dedicated to all the deities. By analogy,
only those performing artists worthy of the highest admiration
and devotion belong in the Pantheon. I owe the artists' Pantheon
idea to Robert Hilburn, former rock critic for the Los
Angeles TimesTM, who wrote occasional articles
using this metaphor.

Literally, those artists I couldn't do without. These kinds of
judgments (evaluations, assessments) can't be reduced to a
formula. They are emotional, holistic, and intensely personal.
Which artist's body of work would you take to the proverbial
desert island if you could only choose one? Then, if you could
only choose two, etc. That is just how my artist rankings got
started, and it is still the essence of them.

My most important criteria are "artistry," "innovation," and
"impact." Artistry is what's in the grooves, exemplary songs and
performances, being blown away by musical excellence at all
levels. Innovation is breaking the mold, creating something new
and different. Impact is influence on others and the flow of
music history. I don't consider popularity except as it affects
influence.

They are not all that different for me. The styles I prefer are
certainly a matter of personal taste. The Pantheon is light on
confessional singer-songwriters, hard rock, metal, indie rock,
and gangsta rap compared with what more avid fans of those
styles would include. The whole idea of the Pantheon on this
site is to be provocative and inspire conversations. Please jump
in: make your own lists, and comment on mine and everyone else's
to rectify my biases!

Yes. We don't have one template for replicating the whole thing
at once. However, on the Artist
Lists page, you'll find six partial templates, one for
each time period. These templates give Cats a head start on
creating their own Pantheon, one period at a time.

Important differences across time are obscured in single,
rank-ordered lists. Every "flat" list that covers more than a
year or two is actually confounding the value of the artists
with the relative importance of the artists' time periods. I
find it both fun and illuminating to look at artist rankings in
their own, respective time frames. (I prefer to look at song and
album rankings that way as well.)

Why six columns? Why these boundaries? Different structures
lend themselves to the telling of different stories. There is an
intrinsic interplay between assigning artists to time periods
and defining the number of time periods and their boundaries.
(One example is spelled out below.) I eventually honed in on
these particular time periods after many years of experimenting,
periodically informed by feedback from critical friends. The
first two columns are the era dominated by singles rather than
albums. The last two are the era that PitchforkTM
covers in their "guide to the greatest songs from punk to the
present."

Artists are ranked in tiers based on their entire career. Each
tier is a group of artists more like each other (in rank) than
the ones in the next group. Tier one artists are more
indispensable than Tier two artists, and so on. A tiered
structure permits ranking in groups of varying size instead of
ranking artists one at a time. The number of artists in each
tier varies depending on how many artists assigned to that time
period share the same level of indispensability. Artists in the
top two tiers deserve unequivocal Pantheon status. Tier three
artists merit a bit of equivocation only because there are 35
artists ranked above them. As we move down to lower tiers, the
"indispensable" criterion becomes relative and subject to
caveats. ("Tiers of A Clown," anyone?)

Within each time period, the tier is the most important
ranking. Rank order within each tier is somewhat arbitrary and
less important. As examples, Elvis Presley and Chuck Berry in
1953-1961 and James Brown and the Rolling Stones in 1967-1971
could just as well be listed in the opposite order. If we had no
practical limit on the width of the Pantheon presentation, I
would put these pairs of artists, and many other pairs
throughout the Pantheon, at the same vertical level.

Although they sometimes make for interesting comparisons, no
significance to the horizontal rows is intended. The rows are
artifacts of presentation in a strict grid format, and indirect
side-effects of how the six individual columns line up. For
example, although Little Willie John is in the same horizontal
row as Pink Floyd, there is no implication at all that he is of
equal stature to them. Each of the six columns is a list in its
own right, like the way AllMusicTM ranks albums
within each artist, not across them. Each time period is its own
list.

As mentioned above, artists are ranked in tiers based on their
entire career. They could be assigned either to the time period
where their career started or to the time period when they made
their greatest impact. There are pros and cons to both
approaches. The placement of each artist is easy when based on
career beginning, but the resulting column lists leave much to
be desired. The placement of some artists is open to question if
based on greatest impact, but the resulting column lists are
more satisfying and provocative. After experimenting with both
approaches I settled on the time period of greatest impact.

Artists with long careers are a challenge. For example, Bob
Dylan and Neil Young have carried their careers into the last
time period in dramatic fashion yet have no representation
there. Their positions in Tier One and Tier Two, respectively,
are based on their entire careers. When a good case could be
made for two or more different time periods, I took into account
the other artists in each time period and attempted to find the
best fit for purposes of comparison.

The borderline between the fifth and sixth columns illustrates
the interplay between assigning artists to time periods and
defining the time period boundaries. The borderline was
determined by placement of artists that could have gone either
way. Both U2 and R.E.M. (among others) had great impact in the
1980s as well as later. Taking the various alternatives into
account, I decided to begin the sixth column at 1991 so that Achtung
Baby and "Losing My Religion" would be included there, and
so that Public Enemy's Fear of a Black Planet would not.
I believe that resulted in the most satisfying dividing line
between the fifth and sixth columns. Placing U2 in the earlier
column leaves the top tier of the last column empty. Decisions
like these are clearly open to debate.

Individual artists are often combined with groups they led or
with whom they performed at one time. I give individuals
prominence when I think they deserve it. For example,
"Dion/Belmonts" is meant to be read, "Dion, including his work
with The Belmonts." I think these composites represent
individuals' contributions best without adversely affecting the
groups. In particular, neither Cream nor The Velvet Underground
would rank as high on its own. The early and late Drifters, two
different groups that ended up sharing the same name, are a
unique case.

Our design of the Alley site does not allow displays wider than
the present six-column Pantheon. For this reason, the
Nonperformers Pantheon and Forefathers Pantheon appear with
other Artist Lists rather than as an integral part of the main
Artist Pantheon. One benefit of keeping them separate is to
remove the temptation to look horizontally across columns. I've
never been able to wrap my brain around ranking producers in the
same list as performers.